Dave Grohl: Sepultura’s ‘Roots’ ‘Became the Gauge for Every Album Foo Fighters Did for Ten Years’

Dave Grohl is a man of many talents. What helps the Foo Fighters frontman is a willingness to be open to all kinds of different music genres and a desire to take from it what he can. In a recent interview with Mojo Magazine, Grohl opened up about one of his favorite records of all time: Sepultura's Roots.

He recounted his love for the album with the following story:

"When I was young, my best friend was Jimmy. We were discovering music together, but we split paths around the time I discovered DEVO and he discovered Loverboy. That's not exactly a two-way street. So as I was buying my GBH singles, Jimmy ordered a record by Metallica. Three weeks later, I get the phone call: 'Dude, get the fuck up here right now.' He had just got the cassette of Kill 'Em All. That's where Jimmy and I met in the middle. At one point he discovered Sepultura— Arise was the first one he got. I loved them. The first time they played Seattle, they were just ferocious. It wasn't that groomed heavy metal aesthetic; there were dreadlocks everywhere and the guitars were tuned down to Z. [Krist] Novoselic started getting into them too, and at one point we entertained the idea of having them open up for Nirvana. It never happened… Then Roots came out, produced by Ross Robinson and mixed by Andy Wallace: sonically the most powerful album I had ever heard. Made everything else sound like a flea fart. That record became the gauge for every studio album Foo Fighters did for ten years. 'That sounds pretty good, but see how it stands up to that Sepultura record…' There's no way we ever got anywhere close. But it gave you perspective — this is heavy. What you're doing? It's okay, but this is heavy."

Foo Fighters' highly anticipated album Concrete and Gold finally comes out this Friday, Sept. 15. Leading up to the album, Grohl has also spoken about wanting to have recorded a studio album in front of an audience before the idea was discarded when PJ Harvey did something similar.